Stuff

This morning’s YouGov poll for the Sun had topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 39%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 13%. Whereas once the YouGov daily poll was pretty consistent in showing an average Labour lead of ten points or so, the lead is now in single figures more often than not, suggesting an underlying average of around 8 or 9 points. Full tabs are here.

The Sun this morning also had some YouGov polling on how people see the political leaders, in particular how they compare to Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, both in their own way challengers to the current system and politicians who manage to present themselves as “anti-politicians” (Farage quite explicitly, Boris just by being Boris!). Full tabs are here.

Farage and Boris are both seen as more in touch than any of the main party leaders, and are both seen as less stage-managed than the main party leaders (though Farage is still seen as more stage managed than genuine). In terms of honesty Boris is seen as the most honest of the five, but not by a large amount. The biggest contrast is on whether they would be interesting or boring to spend time with, where Boris is in a completely different league to the others. The two “anti-politicians” score very differently on competence questions. Here the incumbent still does best, with David Cameron scoring the highest on being good in a crisis and on being up to the job of governing. Nigel Farage scores very badly on both – people may well think he is doing well as leader of UKIP, but he is not seen as someone who would be good at governing. In contrast Boris Johnson is only just behind Cameron on both measures – he’s managing to keep that anti-politician charm, while at the same time looking up to the job.

Also out today is some new polling for Lord Ashcroft, or actually two new polls, a telephone one asking voting intention and a couple of other questions, and a longer online one asking background questions. Voting intention there stands at CON 27%, LAB 37%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 15% (as far as I know Populus conducted these polls for Lord Ashcroft, but even if not, they appear to be using Populus’s methodology).

The other findings in the poll are mostly swings and roundabouts, the Conservative lead over Labour on competence and having clear ideas has grown slightly, but they have fallen slightly further behind on values and being for everyone. The people who say they are satisfied with David Cameron as Prime Minister has fallen slightly, but the proportion who prefer him to Ed Miliband is almost unchanged. One interesting point is that David Cameron is no longer significantly more popular than the Conservative party as he was a few years back. It is now much more evenly matched – 18% say they are more favourable to Cameron, 22% more favourable to the Conservatives (the rest were equally favourable/unfavourable about them both). Compare that to Ed Miliband though, who still trails badly behind Labour – 10% are more favourable to Miliband, 38% the Labour party.

Ashcroft also re-asked a question on the European Union from last December, asking people if they were favourable or unfavourable towards the EU and if they think Britain should stay in or leave. Only 19% have a favourable opinion of the EU, compared to 50% with a negative opinion. However, a significant proportion of those anti still think Britain is better in than out, so of the 50% with a negative view, 17% think Britain is better staying. This means that despite negative perceptions of the EU, overall 36% think we are better off in, compared to the 33% who think we would be better off out (the other 32% profess no strong views either way).

152 Responses to “New YouGov and Ashcroft polls”

2) You wrote in reply to Howard “They do actually. Simply ask a team of financial analysts who are not ‘big firm’ tax experts. They will provide a solution which is both simple & transparent.” If it’s so easy, why has no country done that? Unless you can give me an example of course. Do they ALL lack political will?
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The simple answer is: Yes, for the most part they ALL do. They look at the income from VAT (sales tax) & the income from employee’s taxes & decide to stay quiet about corporate avoidance/ evasion.

BTW, you write as if avoidance & evasion are separate & distinct from one another. In fact, it often needs the courts to determine whether schemes are avoidance or evasion on a case by case basis. Recently a 3rd category of aggressive avoidance has been added to the mix.